What's a MIDI keyboard controller for?

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Member Since: Jan 11, 2007

I just bought an Edirol PCR-30 MIDI keyboard controller from a co-worker. I have no idea how to use it or even what it's for. I already installed it with the drivers into my computer (I followed all the instructions), but now I don't know how to use it. I bought it because I thought it was a regular keyboard that I could record with. Because I bought it used from my co-worker, I don't have the manual it supposed to come with (I only got the keyboard and the cd for installation).

Could someone please inform me....

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Cone Poker
Member
Since: Apr 07, 2002


May 27, 2007 08:54 am

it's used to control midi data going to and grom your computer. MIDI is not audio, it just tells the software what note to hit, how hard to hit it, what slider to move, etc. So, if you had a soft synth you could set it up to recieve midi data from the controller, so that when you hit a key on your controller it played the sound from the soft synth. Follow me?

Member
Since: Jan 11, 2007


May 27, 2007 09:05 am

Ah thanks Loki. I think I understand. The controller isn't an instrument of any kind. But I could connect it to a drum machine and control it through the keyboard. Then I could put each part of the drum set(snare, hi-hat, etc.) on separate tracks. Create a drumbeat, then I can export that onto a DAW.

Right?


Cone Poker
Member
Since: Apr 07, 2002


May 27, 2007 09:48 am

sort of.

lets say that you are using a DAW that supports vst instruments, and you have downloaded and installed a free VST synth. Lets say you've also got it set up to work fine in the DAW. Without a keyboard controller you're stuck having to open the piano roll and manually drawing in the notes that you want that synth to play. Some people prefer this, I do for complex passages, but it is time consuming.

Now, with a MIDI controller, you would just set your VST instrument in your DAW to accept an input signal from the controller, then when you play on that the synth writes the MIDI data in real time, and plays back the audio.

MIDI is data though, it is not audio. And even with a drum machine (speaking of a software drum machine here), it will only be sent to one MIDI track that will contain all the notes and event information and sound.

When you want to mix down the whole thing, you will have to go through a step of converting the MIDI data to audio to mix down.

But no, the controller isn't an instrument of any kind, it's a front end between you and the instrument.

Czar of Midi
Administrator
Since: Apr 04, 2002


May 28, 2007 06:09 pm

Make sure you have the latest driver version installed from here. www.roland.com/products/e...0&iCncd=504

Then here is the download link for the manual. www.roland.com/products/e...0&iCncd=504

And here is the main page for it. www.roland.com/products/en/PCR-30/index.html

It looks like Loki has ya gong the right direction for what it does so I'll leave ya in his hands for that.

Member
Since: Jan 11, 2007


May 29, 2007 03:25 am

Thank you so much! That cleared up a lot of confusion. I was told a lot of different things from my co-workers and this actually made sense.

Member
Since: Jan 11, 2007


May 29, 2007 03:29 am

And thank you noize, I definitely needed that manual and the driver.

Czar of Midi
Administrator
Since: Apr 04, 2002


May 30, 2007 09:24 pm

Its what we do here. And yer welcome.

Uh, at least one more time . . .
Member
Since: Feb 07, 2007


May 31, 2007 12:24 am

But couldn't we actually call the "keyboard"
an instrument, since it does in fact play music,
just like a keyboard? Maybe I'm confused here,
but can't a "midi-comtroller" that has, say, a two
-octave set of keys also be called a musical
instrument? When I access Korg's
Wavestation with my M-audio keyboard, and I start playing it in real-time, I'm "playing" a synthesizer. I tend to think of it this way since I've (yet)to use MIDI "controllers" to control MIDI . . . I send the Korg digitized sounds directly to the DAW, in real-time. The M-audio can be used as a MIDI controller, obviously, though I've never used it this way.

Administrator
Since: Apr 03, 2002


May 31, 2007 08:09 am

Yes, some MIDI controllers are simply keyboards, some are not, there are MIDI controllers of other sorts...however, whats the instrument, the device that has the triggers (in this case keys) or the device that produces the sound? Ah, chicken or the egg conundrum for elctronic musicians!

Czar of Midi
Administrator
Since: Apr 04, 2002


May 31, 2007 10:14 pm

Well there is a big bite to think over isn't there. Thanx dB, I have actually never thought of it that way either. I know I have been bad about referring to a keyboard controller simply as a controller myself many times. But indeed dB is right in thinking about it that way. It is just sending data to the real instrument/synth in the software. But as well in my case my controller is a full sized piano weighted 88 key stage controller with aftertouch, velocity and the whole nine yards. But it is still an instrument as well in an odd sense I guess.

Cone Poker
Member
Since: Apr 07, 2002


Jun 01, 2007 09:21 am

is the pick an instrument or is the guitar? I still hold that the keyboard controller, having no sound engine to itself, is just the front end, while the synth is the instrument. You can play the guitar without a pick, and you can play the synth without a keyboard, but you can't use the pick without a guitar, and you can't use the keyboard to make sounds without a synth.

Ne'er ate 'er
Member
Since: Apr 05, 2006


Jun 01, 2007 10:24 am

Is the instrument the sound wave, the string, the pick, the fingers, the brain, or God?

This could go on forever.

Cone Poker
Member
Since: Apr 07, 2002


Jun 01, 2007 12:04 pm

none of the above. It is merely the thoughts of Chuck Norris

Czar of Midi
Administrator
Since: Apr 04, 2002


Jun 01, 2007 09:24 pm

Loki, my keyboard is piano weighted with a hammer action just like a real piano. Trust me, it makes a lot of noise when I'm pounding away on it

Uh, at least one more time . . .
Member
Since: Feb 07, 2007


Jun 01, 2007 09:25 pm

Well, the thing is, that synth (say a Casiotone)
has "triggers" in it, in a sense, as well as a
computer to make the sounds that you hear when you
press the keys . . . just because my M-Audio has
the software to produce the sounds in my computer,
one foot away, doesn't mean that my keyboard isn't
a musical instrument--it's just a different kind of instrument. Someday (soon), I can imagine a
a keyboard with all the above right on-board. It's still a controller, but its everything else,
too--an instrument, just like an old-fashioned
Mellotron, or M-20.

Czar of Midi
Administrator
Since: Apr 04, 2002


Jun 02, 2007 09:38 pm

Tim, those are called workstations and have been around for a good long time, since the mid seventies I do believe. Fairlight

http://www.fairlight.free.fr/images/cmi1.jpg



and Synclaviar which was made famous by the likes of Zappa and many others.

Both were monsterous in size and started out life using 8 bit 16khz samples and sounded like crap. Now we can do it all and more and better right at home in the PC.

Uh, at least one more time . . .
Member
Since: Feb 07, 2007


Jun 02, 2007 11:28 pm

Well, I was thinking of something a little more
. . . compact, with a 3-D screen projected from the device, into thin air, with the computing
power of today's stuff, able to do anything you
can do now, recording and producing-wise, right
from the "keyboard" unit itself.
I just read an article in Electronic Musician (?) wherein the author muses about the old days, and
"electro-mechanical" keyboards (specifically, the
Fender-Rhodes Suitcase (?) Seventy-Three). If I remember right (the magazine is upstairs, and I don't feel like running up), he talks about how
nice it is to play one of these old keyboards,
though he certainly plays the newer stuff as well.
I guess the overall point here is, does the thing
have to be "electro-mechanical" in the way the Fender-Rhodes is to be considered a musical
instrument? Are not the Fairlight and the Synclavier musical instruments, ultimately, in their own right? I guess this thread has meandered a bit, in no small part due to me.

Czar of Midi
Administrator
Since: Apr 04, 2002


Jun 03, 2007 01:13 am

Tim, threads wander off here all the time due in no small part to many of us. So indeed welcome to the club from one thread hi-jacker to another.

I do indeed agree that those old monster's were a great deal of fun and yes, even cool to play with. I had the pleasure of working with several versions of each unit through out my playing days. And while I do agree that the feel of said 73 and other instruments is part of how one reacts with the instrument. We can adapt to almost anything if we put our mind to it. When the first synths came out I missed the thud of the keys. Even my B3 had a certain feel to it that wasn't present in the newer synths as they came along. While I do miss the smooth feel of an un-weighted key I have grown almost as fond of the feel of the action of my Fatar. What I miss most about the synth action keys is the lighter quicker feel of them.

But I digress. I do agree and feel that my controller is the instrument in my case. While I do play other instruments as well that are actually making the sounds. I think the controller is just part of the chain that creates the sound.

And hell ya on having some 3D image floating above my keyboard that I could simply touch with my fingers to control what ever it is I wanted.

As for the electro-mechanical part. I have seen some controllers out there that react to proximity and movement and touch. But in one way or another they are still electro even without the mechanical. So I think we will be connected some how in the electro sense always. Mechanical however is not an absolute must in the now and future of music.

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